Tuesday, April 30, 2013

We've talked about former Trenmouth'er and current SNL'er Fred Armisen's faux-77 punk band Ian Rubbish and The Bizarros HERE. Now it turns out that, like his piss-take on hardcore, Crisis of Conformity, Armisen's recorded some of the tracks that are used in the skit. Unlike the two CoC track which were released only on vinyl the four tracks by Rubbish & co. are being offered to your for free right HERE!

Monday, April 29, 2013

Vancouver's nineties jazz-punks The Sarcastic Mannequins could be a lot of different things at any given moment. If I needed to name-drop to get you, the listener, to give this album a shot, I'd mention Camper Van Beethoven, NoMeansNo, Dick Dale, The Minutemen, Frank Zappa, The Pixies, 3 Mustaphas 3 and Sandinista-era Clash, who they pay homage to on their reloaded version of Sandanista’s “Charlie
Don’t Surf”:

As the above list of musical references indicates, they weren’t three-chord bashers, which breaks one of the promises of MRML's mission
statement. They’d like that. The band (Beez
on bass/vocals, Bradford Lambert on drums Andrew Shyman on
guitar/vocals) used to hand out lyric sheets before
their shows just to make sure that even the inattentive could be
offended by their words.

Despite their deliberately nonlinear forays into ragas, ska, spy, and tricky,
jazzy instrumental sections, the Mannequins manged to get some radio play on the CBC for their c-c-catchy swipe at classic rock radio, "The 6-6-60's are Over":

My encounter with the Sarcastic Mannequins occurred when they played a tight, blistering set on a Tuesday in October of
1989 at the University of Manitoba’s bar. The assembled crowd wasn’t - so we all
hung out backstage and they peppered us with quotes for my review for the University's paper.

Yeah,
I dropped the name of the Bad Brains and my band (see HERE, yeesh) into the
review. Shameless. The band members kept in touch for a while and Beez was
always friendly – even when I hinted that they should’ve tacked the demo
onto the CD. He went on to man the bass for the most-excellent Smugglers and then the lovely Beauticians.

This
album will not be everyone’s cup of meat (what here is?) but
those who get it will return to it repeatedly for the many odd, quirky, cool moments like their hymn to our nation's most renowned literary export, "Margaret Atwood", which Narduar the Human Serviette brought to the attention of "The Queen of Canadian Culture" HERE.

Like their demo, this 1991 album, Little Brother, was was a
disconcerting yet fun jazz-punk fusion and though it may have came a bit
too late in their career, it did still capture much of what was best about the band.

1) If You have any thoughts or reactions to this oddball trio, please advise us in the COMMENTS section, where you can go to hear Little Brother.

2) If you yourself, or anyone you know, has access to the SM's demo tape, EyeSwallow, PLEASE ADVISE me!

Friday, April 26, 2013

I was saddened to hear of the passing of country vocalist George Jones (obituary) yesterday. Jones is legendary for many reasons but was revered primarily for being one of the most skilled vocalists in the music's history. While my own country pantheon is dominated by song-writers like Williams, Cash, Miller, Haggard, Earle etc., it's hard not to be awed at The Possum's performance in songs as different as "White Lightning" and "He Stopped Loving Here Today".

Now Jones did do some song-writing in his time and, in fact, his breakout hit from 1956, "Why Baby Why", was co-written with long-time friend and frequent collaborator, Darrell Edwards. Nashville's cow-punks Jason & The Scorchers, who've always shown exquisite taste in covers, chose to do do a rip-snortin' version of JOnes and Edwards' "Why, Baby, Why" on their ridiculously under-rated "A Blazing Grace " album in 1995. Check it out!

Here's Jones' original.

Any thoughts on the passing George "No Show" Jones can be left in the COMMENTS section.

'Three chords, three countries, one revolution…Punk in Africa is the
story of the multi-racial punk movement within... South
Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.'

Punk In Africa (Economist review HERE) is a new documentary whose subject matter is exactly what that title promises.The trailer implies a a mix-up of Searching for Sugarman and the Afro-Punk doc, which has me hooked!

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Yes, it's juvenile cheap-shot at a soft target and, Hell, it may even be partly faked but this is a damn funny combination on the age-old 'band names are funny' joke and the more cynical 'people trying to be cool are so gullible' gag. So, anyway, here's a member of Jimmy Kimmel's team interviewing aspiring hipsters at this years' Coachellea Festival and feeding them fake band names to see if they'll take the bait. Now, if only they'd named one of the bands, "The Emperor's New Clothes" this would've been perfect...

Sunday, April 21, 2013

For Record Store Day 2013, Columbia put out a Bob Dylan single with an unreleased demo of "Wigwam" on the A side and a previously unreleased recording, "Thirsty Boots" on the B side. The songs are from the forthcoming
Bootleg Series Vol. 10, which is rumored to consist of material from 1969 to 1973, likely meaning outtakes from Nashville Skyline, Self Portrait, New Morning, the Greatest Hits Vol. 2 sessions and the Pat
Garrett & Billy The Kid soundtrack.

It's an effective tease for the next volume of the Bootleg series, which, era-wise, is certainly in more dangerous waters then most of the others. "Wigwam" is a demo version, dominated by piano rather then the brass section which Self-Portrait producer Bob Johnson employed. Even better is Dylan's sturdy take on Eric Andersen's 1966 ballad, "Thirsty Boots", which has the passion that so many of the tracks that actually made it onto Self-Portrait lacked.

Music Trader (A.K.A. Indie-Rock Central)
Purchases: Titus' Andronicus' Local Business (new, $17.99), The Motors' Greatest Hits (used, $8.99)
Store quality: Hipsterific!
Buyers' Remorse: Low on the Titus, a highlight of 2012 but medium on The Motors which is an imperfect distillation of an imperfect band.
Clerks irritated: One (out of two).

The Folk Festival Music Store (A.K.A. Your source for classic rock, folk music and zithers)
Purchases: Undertones Positive Touch/The Sin of Pride ($18.99) The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem ($21.99).
Store quality: Folktastic,
Buyers' remorse: Very low for Positive Touch, which I love more every year but higher for Sin of Pride which is a pretty tepid affair and non-existent for The Clancy Brothers since it includes their first four, and probably best albums on two CDs.
Clerks irritated: one (of one)

Entertainment Exchange (A.K.A. Where the 90s go to die)
Purchases: The Methadones - Ill at Ease [$3.99]
Store quality: Entertaining with a high quantity of the Blues.
Buyers' Remorse: Low, I mean it's my least favorite album by Dan Vapid (ex-Screeching Weasel) and The Methadones but for less than four bucks – steal!
Clerks irritated: Less than one but there really wasn't sufficient time...

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Thanks to my man, Ian for this link to a decently-shot (would the rest of you put down your fucking phones!) video of the secret show by Flag (Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski, Dez Cadena, Bill Stevenson and Stephen Egerton doing Black Flag songs) this week at the Redondo Beach Moose Lodge. What a fucking marvel that a fifty-eight year old diabetic like Keith Morris can rock out like a madman. For more on this show, read THIS.

Monday, April 15, 2013

While Billy Idol may never have been punk's resident philosopher, it's still fascinating watching him struggling, at length, to articulate what punk meant to him in the midst of it all. There's some really funny moments and genuine in here and it's a reminder of just how music was about the only thing that mattered to young William Broad.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Watch out bank account, I'm spending like a right-wing politician elected on a balanced-budget platform! I've been pretty cautious these last few months, so I guess a splurge would not be out of character. The Moxy Fruvous (Canadian novelty-folk, unlikely to be profiled here) was only $5.00 and a cool find because it's a radio promo of a cassette that was never released on CD.

I paid full freight (about $22.00) for the new UK Subs album, XXIV, which is fierce affair, all 'pensioner-punks' slights aside.

The Graham Parker bootleg box was a cool item that I was hesitant buy until the price dropped to $21.00 for a six CD set [!]

The Rodriguez album, Cold Fact, has been inevitable since I watched the spell-binding Searching For Sugarman twice, once by myself, once with my wife and a friend.

I also downloaded the the re-issue of TV Smith's 1975 glam-rock band Sleaze (it was only $4.99 and the vinyl is $21.00!) plus the debut by NYC's Pedico because "Nixon Now" rocked.

So readers, tell us what music you've bought recently in the COMMENTS section!

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

To honour a request from Revolutionary Bum, here's the lone solo single from ex-Plasmatics man Richie Stotts from 1992. While I did not obtain this from the hair-rockin' Hear Rock City, when I did find it, it had the same three bonus songs as one the proprietor of that blog, Rocket had posted years ago. So, thanks, Rocket.

Disclaimer

MRML is a blog about the devestating effects of culture: music, politics, comics plus etc. blah blah blah. At times MRML will post fine, unpurchasable three-chord obscurica (punk, pop-punk, new wave, mod, power-pop, gospel, reggae, hardcore, rockabilly, folk, country...whatever.) - - - - - - "The otherwise unavailable files in this blog are posted for a limited time and are intended for educational, non-commercial use. These files were transcribed from what are believed to be out-of-print sources. If you are aware of any of these items being readily available from commercial sources, or if any of these files infringe upon rights that you hold, please notify us so that we can quickly remove the referenced items immediately." - - - SUPPORT THE ARTISTS - BUY MUSIC!